Here's a gimp report on Square Enix at TGS by yours truly.
Closed Mega Theater:
I was pretty lucky with this apparently, well, I can't tell if they're just assholes and like to bullshit but when I arrived at the Square Enix booth this morning I went to like up and asked the guy how to get in, he replied in English and he told me "all of today's tickets are already gone".
I wasn't going to miss out on this thing so I walked up a bit and thought of a bullshit story to get me in. I called an assistant over to the barrier and told him in Japanese I was in line about 15 minutes ago and I had to run to the bathroom and that my girlfriend was in the line or may be in the theatre now. He walked off and asked someone and came back and gave me a ticket. I dunno if they really were out of tickets or what but I feel pretty lucky :lol didn't expect that story to work, especially in a second language.
Waited in line for the next 30 minutes until we finally got in.
First trailer:
Kingdom Hearts Mobile -
Looks interesting, starting this Autumn in Japan (now) might check it out. Very simple 2D sprites you can customise with different costumes and characters can be changed. In a recent interview with Famitsu, Nomura showed the reporter his current character in this application, it was a Heartless or some variant of the Heartless species.
In the application you can move around a small town and play various games, card games, puzzles etc. Seems like a nice commuter game.
Trailer ended with the sprite moving to a Kingdom Hearts: Coded icon on the field map.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days
I haven't been overly hyped for this one since I seldom play my DS but this trailer has sparked a fire I'm sure won't be put out easily. The story seems to be dramatic and I believe it will have a strong companionship and emotional toll on the player.
The 13th member of the Organisation is Shion/Xion, seems to be a teenage girl around the age of Roxas. She's quite troubled and is questioning her purpose, she's also looking for this 'friend' that I wasn't able to figure out from the trailer but it could be Kairi.
I think the story is going to revolve around Axel, Roxas and Shion/Xion. There were a few scenes which really made me think "This is going to have a good story". I didn't play any of the Kingdom Hearts games in English but I heard that it's not as touching as it is in Japanese (depends how you take it, I guess) however the content and effort put into the atmosphere of the cut scenes is quite amazing, I'm sure it will be localised in-tact. I am highly anticipating this game.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
I have been reading up on this a bit recently with the introduction of Aqua, the third playable character in the cast of BBS. This trailer wasn't as dramatic as 358/2 days however it's still quite interesting.
Showed a lot of combat scenes from Aqua. She seems to kind of hover above the ground in combat and seems to use magic and melee in combos. For example: I seen a 3 hit combo, the enemy was thrown into the air and Aqua jumped up and slammed it down, finishing it with a burst of magic which was something like a hurricane around her, she hovered towards the other Heartless and they all suffered from this.
Trailer finished off with that Roxas look a like on the beach telling a figure to help him "disappear" or something.
The 3rd Birthday: Parasite Eve
FMV trailer, was brand new and fucking -amazing-.
The trailer starts off flashing between a present Aya in a city, it's snowing and she's walking in an ally alone. Flashes to the past recalling the previous events with narration.
The quality is amazing, Aya looks gorgeous.
Soon after the snow falling comes to a slow halt and a huge creature erupts from the end of the ally, shredding up snow. The enemy resembled a giant worm but with some kind of mist and tentacles of some kind, I think they looked mechanical.
Aya stands there, pulls out her guns and aims.
Moves into some in game footage and boy, it looks nice. The character models are seemingly leap years ahead of FF7:CC and Agito. There was no battle mechanics shown, just Aya walking around a lab and talking to some people in cutscenes. No voice work besides the narration.
I scanned this from the Square Enix booklet:
Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Trailer introduced the final characters in the format we see in the longer PV on the official website. Butz is shown in his strange and creepy glory. He looks interesting to play as anyway. He seems to summon weapons from other FF characters.
Kefka and Terra? they both look interesting also.
Not much to write about, was kind of short but the combat is awesome, I can say this with proof now having played it.
FINAL FANTASY agito XIII
Sorry, I forgot about this.
Was a blend of the old in game footage with a new FMV with narration telling of the war in the world. It's all monotone and shows countries being bombed on the map.
Had a very 'nazi' feel to it. The names of the countries bombing the Japanese-like named countries are very European like. It shows the 'school' being attacked and a crystal is destroyed.
Skips to in-game footage we've seen before at JF and TGS07 of the Card-kun throwing his cards and summoning monsters (odin?).
Moves to FMV again and shows the students of the school posing on a stone surrounded by enemies, card-kun flicks through his cards, he selects a card and throws it out (looks awesome btw) and then the moment his card gets this magical effect, all the students draw arms. Trailer ends. "This is their duty" was said, if I recall correctly (don't hold me to that, wasn't paying attention)
FINAL FANTASY XIII
Started off with the familiar TGS07 footage of the dragon-like flying creature swooping down over a stream, camera moves up to Sera (formerly Nom-chan). Camera pans and shows the world in the distance.
Changes to the airship we've seen previously. This thing is huge and small airships that resemble fish (green beams the top and bottom that are shaped like the spine in fins). The mother airship sends out green circle markers in which the airships fly through, into a docking station and slowly move to the end of the dock which takes them below.
Camera changes to another airship, this is all new footage and a new location. out of the airship a man? with a pony tail walks out, seems to be some kind of general or a leader of some organisation. We see some soldiers that we've seen in the in-game screen shots released recently, they look a bit like the Helghast from Killzone but a little more organised and scary. They're carrying a casket towards the airship with the general, looks like a black cocoon but at the end is Sera. She has a very royal-esque outfit (I feel that she may be related to royalty or something, I'll elaborate below.) She's walking with them and looks kind of melancholy. At the foot of the unit carrying the casket is the woman with the large breasts, glasses and knee-length hair.
Changes scene to a new location we seen in pictures long ago. There's a large creature or statue in the midst of a green-ish underground location. The special soldiers are surrounding the creature and the city in the background is burning, smoke is coming out of the buildings. The soldiers fire pipes or some other thing into the creature and soon after there's a thousand odd 'pipes' impaled in this thing.
Change scene: We see a beach like location, airships and carriers fly overhead, the camera is in a birds eye position and one of the airships drops 2 objects. As they fall they explode into smaller creatures(?). Camera moves to ground level and there are the clone wars lookalike soldiers running out of the small army barracks like place they have there. 2 futuristic ground vehicles arrive and the camera once again shifts to old footage.
Shortly we hear Lightnings voice. It's not a cutscene but quite a few scenes flashing in out, we see Lightning walking through the ruins with Sera and then again at the frozen location. They're being assaulted by the special soldiers. We see some fancy combat and sword transformation from Lightning and she flips back to defend. We see Mr.33CM talk with lipsync here and the trailer ends.
Dialogue: (not 100%) Updated from the audio leak
Credits to BlankChocobo from FinalFantasy-XIII.net for the translation.
Lightning: What about the mission?
Mr 33cm: Wait!
Lightning: Are you already going to give up on the mission and die here?
Lightning: (You... are devoid of meaning.)
Mr 33cm: I... absolutely will not give up! I... will complete the mission,
and protect Sera! I swear it.
Lightning: Show me you can protect (Sera).
FINAL FANTASY versus XIII
yikes I'm getting tired!
Trailer opens with the car scene in the tunnel and radio talking about the end of a cold war. Seems a little bit extended, shows some road signs with names "En Victis" and "Nhilifium" or something like that.
Car exits a tunnel and we see airships looming over in the distance.
Shakespeare message appears and we cut to new in-game footage.
Camera shows a staircase, we see the princes feet climbing the staircase. Detailed shoes. I want some. Camera moves up and shows the prince in his glory, he looks a bit antisocial. He notices Stella looking at the painting of the Goddess and she notices he's around.
She asks him if he seen something earlier, she also seen it she states. She questions him if that is the 'light'. She approaches him quite quickly and he seems a little timid, he turns his back and moves to walk away muttering "It's better not to talk about that", she catches up and does the cute Japanese 'one foot hands behind back spin' motion and questions him if 'that' (dialogue below) is not indeed the words of the (scholars?) at a place called Tenebuira. He tells Stella it's probably the same 'here', also.
By the way, the animation and detail to expression is very impressive. I find that FFvXIII seems to have a little graphical edge over XIII right now. It's truly amazing, I want to see it once more.
After a little more chatter they Noct slumps down onto a chair and we see more of the room while they talk about this 'power' from 'light'. There's a aquarium in the centre of the room.
Noct excuses himself that he must be leaving soon and the two depart after Stella introduces herself and invites him to her 'city/country' 'Tenebuira'. Noct tells her he'll consider it and she leaves rather quickly.
Noct looks up and a voice asks him "Who... are you?"
He mutters back "That's my line" and shrugs it off, walking away.
The rest of the footage was old FMV stuff from TGS07 and Jump Festa.
Dialogue: (not 100% either)
様 is used after Noctis, I'm using lord because I don't know of a better way to translate it.
I'm also throwing in some shit here to make it sound normal. Direct translation is going to sound strange.
Stella: (Lord) Noctis can see the light also, right? I also can see it.
Some time ago, down stairs, ..that thing we saw, that was the 'light' wasn't it?
Stella: It's said in Tenebuira that when the Goddess Etro opens the gate connected between the deceased country light is seldomly seen, however, if seen the said person will be awarded some kind of 'power'
Noctis: That's the same deal here, it seems.
Stella: (Lord) Noctis was gifted with the said 'power'?
Noctis: It's rather better not to talk about those things. It's different from person to person but one way or another it will bring about trouble.
(Noct walks away a bit and slumps onto a chair)
Stella: That 'light', what do you think it really is?
Noctis: It's always 'there' am I not right?
Noctis: Hm..., (suggesting he doesn't know who she is right now)
Stella: I'm Stella.
Noctis: Ah, Stella.., I'll have to be leaving soon.
Stella: I'm sorry for holding you up, Lord Noctis.
Noctis: Just 'Noct' is fine.
Stella: I'll also be leaving. Today I feel that I also received that so called 'power'.
I was able to talk to you.
If it's good for you, next time please come to Tenebuira. I'll show you around.
Noct: That seems good.. I'll give it some thought.
(Stella leaves)
Noct raises his head towards a sound coming.
"Who... are you?"
Noct: That's my line.
[Taken from 104.net, the admin of the website blogged her sketch of the new characters shown. Xion actually has black hair and not blue that is portrayed in the drawing.]
That wraps up my detailing of the trailers, here's some pictures of the booth area.
Dissidia demo:
Quite a fun game. Combat is smooth and easy to jump into. I cleared the demo twice (once using Squall the other Tidus) in about 10 minutes on easy. Got my ass handed to me by Cloud of Darkness using Tidus once though.
I really like the openness of the game, I like aerial combat so this is quite nice for me.
PLAYSTATION3 X FINAL FANTASY XIII [playstation live hall]
This wasn't a world preview to the game play like I was expecting but it was, I guess, worth waiting for.
about 60 people stood in this small ass square enclosure with a chain to say 'we're waiting'. It was like an Army assembly. My legs were killing me after waiting an hour and a half.
Had a couple hours to burn so I walked around a bit more.
Came back in time for 4:00PM and soon after the show started.
We heard 2 songs, one which seems to be the theme (wasn't confirmed if I recall correctly), there were 5 people playing instruments. 2 violinists, a pianist, a miniature cello and a normal cello.
The music was superb and really hit the spot.
After the first song Masashi Hamazu (FF13 composer) came out and gave a bit of a talk about how things are going, his ideas for the music and some uninspiring advice for people wanting to get into video game music :lol
Hamazu's talk:
He said the production is good (he was talking about the music) he said when he comes with music he doesn't think straight up "I want to do THIS and THAT" but more or less comes up with something first and then will alter it until it's perfect for what it should be.
They also don't name their songs systematically like "this will be theme 10" it's more like, they make the songs, listen, and decide what fits what, if something is left, they'll use samples and maybe take out something they like and make a new song.[/i]
Second song sounded like something you would hear in a scene with some emotional torment in characters, a bit troubling I guess. It was very nice.
After that a new trailer came up, well, it was basically the one in the Closed Mega Theater however there were a couple new parts. Voice acting was not present in this version. I underlined the parts that were new in my FFXIII trailer report.
Well, if that didn't float your boat I at least hope this helps. I'm buggered.
Closed Mega Theater:
I was pretty lucky with this apparently, well, I can't tell if they're just assholes and like to bullshit but when I arrived at the Square Enix booth this morning I went to like up and asked the guy how to get in, he replied in English and he told me "all of today's tickets are already gone".
I wasn't going to miss out on this thing so I walked up a bit and thought of a bullshit story to get me in. I called an assistant over to the barrier and told him in Japanese I was in line about 15 minutes ago and I had to run to the bathroom and that my girlfriend was in the line or may be in the theatre now. He walked off and asked someone and came back and gave me a ticket. I dunno if they really were out of tickets or what but I feel pretty lucky :lol didn't expect that story to work, especially in a second language.
Waited in line for the next 30 minutes until we finally got in.
First trailer:
Kingdom Hearts Mobile -
Looks interesting, starting this Autumn in Japan (now) might check it out. Very simple 2D sprites you can customise with different costumes and characters can be changed. In a recent interview with Famitsu, Nomura showed the reporter his current character in this application, it was a Heartless or some variant of the Heartless species.
In the application you can move around a small town and play various games, card games, puzzles etc. Seems like a nice commuter game.
Trailer ended with the sprite moving to a Kingdom Hearts: Coded icon on the field map.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 days
I haven't been overly hyped for this one since I seldom play my DS but this trailer has sparked a fire I'm sure won't be put out easily. The story seems to be dramatic and I believe it will have a strong companionship and emotional toll on the player.
The 13th member of the Organisation is Shion/Xion, seems to be a teenage girl around the age of Roxas. She's quite troubled and is questioning her purpose, she's also looking for this 'friend' that I wasn't able to figure out from the trailer but it could be Kairi.
I think the story is going to revolve around Axel, Roxas and Shion/Xion. There were a few scenes which really made me think "This is going to have a good story". I didn't play any of the Kingdom Hearts games in English but I heard that it's not as touching as it is in Japanese (depends how you take it, I guess) however the content and effort put into the atmosphere of the cut scenes is quite amazing, I'm sure it will be localised in-tact. I am highly anticipating this game.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
I have been reading up on this a bit recently with the introduction of Aqua, the third playable character in the cast of BBS. This trailer wasn't as dramatic as 358/2 days however it's still quite interesting.
Showed a lot of combat scenes from Aqua. She seems to kind of hover above the ground in combat and seems to use magic and melee in combos. For example: I seen a 3 hit combo, the enemy was thrown into the air and Aqua jumped up and slammed it down, finishing it with a burst of magic which was something like a hurricane around her, she hovered towards the other Heartless and they all suffered from this.
Trailer finished off with that Roxas look a like on the beach telling a figure to help him "disappear" or something.
The 3rd Birthday: Parasite Eve
FMV trailer, was brand new and fucking -amazing-.
The trailer starts off flashing between a present Aya in a city, it's snowing and she's walking in an ally alone. Flashes to the past recalling the previous events with narration.
The quality is amazing, Aya looks gorgeous.
Soon after the snow falling comes to a slow halt and a huge creature erupts from the end of the ally, shredding up snow. The enemy resembled a giant worm but with some kind of mist and tentacles of some kind, I think they looked mechanical.
Aya stands there, pulls out her guns and aims.
Moves into some in game footage and boy, it looks nice. The character models are seemingly leap years ahead of FF7:CC and Agito. There was no battle mechanics shown, just Aya walking around a lab and talking to some people in cutscenes. No voice work besides the narration.
I scanned this from the Square Enix booklet:
Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Trailer introduced the final characters in the format we see in the longer PV on the official website. Butz is shown in his strange and creepy glory. He looks interesting to play as anyway. He seems to summon weapons from other FF characters.
Kefka and Terra? they both look interesting also.
Not much to write about, was kind of short but the combat is awesome, I can say this with proof now having played it.
FINAL FANTASY agito XIII
Sorry, I forgot about this.
Was a blend of the old in game footage with a new FMV with narration telling of the war in the world. It's all monotone and shows countries being bombed on the map.
Had a very 'nazi' feel to it. The names of the countries bombing the Japanese-like named countries are very European like. It shows the 'school' being attacked and a crystal is destroyed.
Skips to in-game footage we've seen before at JF and TGS07 of the Card-kun throwing his cards and summoning monsters (odin?).
Moves to FMV again and shows the students of the school posing on a stone surrounded by enemies, card-kun flicks through his cards, he selects a card and throws it out (looks awesome btw) and then the moment his card gets this magical effect, all the students draw arms. Trailer ends. "This is their duty" was said, if I recall correctly (don't hold me to that, wasn't paying attention)
FINAL FANTASY XIII
Started off with the familiar TGS07 footage of the dragon-like flying creature swooping down over a stream, camera moves up to Sera (formerly Nom-chan). Camera pans and shows the world in the distance.
Changes to the airship we've seen previously. This thing is huge and small airships that resemble fish (green beams the top and bottom that are shaped like the spine in fins). The mother airship sends out green circle markers in which the airships fly through, into a docking station and slowly move to the end of the dock which takes them below.
Camera changes to another airship, this is all new footage and a new location. out of the airship a man? with a pony tail walks out, seems to be some kind of general or a leader of some organisation. We see some soldiers that we've seen in the in-game screen shots released recently, they look a bit like the Helghast from Killzone but a little more organised and scary. They're carrying a casket towards the airship with the general, looks like a black cocoon but at the end is Sera. She has a very royal-esque outfit (I feel that she may be related to royalty or something, I'll elaborate below.) She's walking with them and looks kind of melancholy. At the foot of the unit carrying the casket is the woman with the large breasts, glasses and knee-length hair.
Changes scene to a new location we seen in pictures long ago. There's a large creature or statue in the midst of a green-ish underground location. The special soldiers are surrounding the creature and the city in the background is burning, smoke is coming out of the buildings. The soldiers fire pipes or some other thing into the creature and soon after there's a thousand odd 'pipes' impaled in this thing.
Change scene: We see a beach like location, airships and carriers fly overhead, the camera is in a birds eye position and one of the airships drops 2 objects. As they fall they explode into smaller creatures(?). Camera moves to ground level and there are the clone wars lookalike soldiers running out of the small army barracks like place they have there. 2 futuristic ground vehicles arrive and the camera once again shifts to old footage.
Shortly we hear Lightnings voice. It's not a cutscene but quite a few scenes flashing in out, we see Lightning walking through the ruins with Sera and then again at the frozen location. They're being assaulted by the special soldiers. We see some fancy combat and sword transformation from Lightning and she flips back to defend. We see Mr.33CM talk with lipsync here and the trailer ends.
Dialogue: (not 100%) Updated from the audio leak
Credits to BlankChocobo from FinalFantasy-XIII.net for the translation.
Lightning: What about the mission?
Mr 33cm: Wait!
Lightning: Are you already going to give up on the mission and die here?
Lightning: (You... are devoid of meaning.)
Mr 33cm: I... absolutely will not give up! I... will complete the mission,
and protect Sera! I swear it.
Lightning: Show me you can protect (Sera).
FINAL FANTASY versus XIII
yikes I'm getting tired!
Trailer opens with the car scene in the tunnel and radio talking about the end of a cold war. Seems a little bit extended, shows some road signs with names "En Victis" and "Nhilifium" or something like that.
Car exits a tunnel and we see airships looming over in the distance.
Shakespeare message appears and we cut to new in-game footage.
Camera shows a staircase, we see the princes feet climbing the staircase. Detailed shoes. I want some. Camera moves up and shows the prince in his glory, he looks a bit antisocial. He notices Stella looking at the painting of the Goddess and she notices he's around.
She asks him if he seen something earlier, she also seen it she states. She questions him if that is the 'light'. She approaches him quite quickly and he seems a little timid, he turns his back and moves to walk away muttering "It's better not to talk about that", she catches up and does the cute Japanese 'one foot hands behind back spin' motion and questions him if 'that' (dialogue below) is not indeed the words of the (scholars?) at a place called Tenebuira. He tells Stella it's probably the same 'here', also.
By the way, the animation and detail to expression is very impressive. I find that FFvXIII seems to have a little graphical edge over XIII right now. It's truly amazing, I want to see it once more.
After a little more chatter they Noct slumps down onto a chair and we see more of the room while they talk about this 'power' from 'light'. There's a aquarium in the centre of the room.
Noct excuses himself that he must be leaving soon and the two depart after Stella introduces herself and invites him to her 'city/country' 'Tenebuira'. Noct tells her he'll consider it and she leaves rather quickly.
Noct looks up and a voice asks him "Who... are you?"
He mutters back "That's my line" and shrugs it off, walking away.
The rest of the footage was old FMV stuff from TGS07 and Jump Festa.
Dialogue: (not 100% either)
様 is used after Noctis, I'm using lord because I don't know of a better way to translate it.
I'm also throwing in some shit here to make it sound normal. Direct translation is going to sound strange.
Stella: (Lord) Noctis can see the light also, right? I also can see it.
Some time ago, down stairs, ..that thing we saw, that was the 'light' wasn't it?
Stella: It's said in Tenebuira that when the Goddess Etro opens the gate connected between the deceased country light is seldomly seen, however, if seen the said person will be awarded some kind of 'power'
Noctis: That's the same deal here, it seems.
Stella: (Lord) Noctis was gifted with the said 'power'?
Noctis: It's rather better not to talk about those things. It's different from person to person but one way or another it will bring about trouble.
(Noct walks away a bit and slumps onto a chair)
Stella: That 'light', what do you think it really is?
Noctis: It's always 'there' am I not right?
Noctis: Hm..., (suggesting he doesn't know who she is right now)
Stella: I'm Stella.
Noctis: Ah, Stella.., I'll have to be leaving soon.
Stella: I'm sorry for holding you up, Lord Noctis.
Noctis: Just 'Noct' is fine.
Stella: I'll also be leaving. Today I feel that I also received that so called 'power'.
I was able to talk to you.
If it's good for you, next time please come to Tenebuira. I'll show you around.
Noct: That seems good.. I'll give it some thought.
(Stella leaves)
Noct raises his head towards a sound coming.
"Who... are you?"
Noct: That's my line.
[Taken from 104.net, the admin of the website blogged her sketch of the new characters shown. Xion actually has black hair and not blue that is portrayed in the drawing.]
That wraps up my detailing of the trailers, here's some pictures of the booth area.
Dissidia demo:
Quite a fun game. Combat is smooth and easy to jump into. I cleared the demo twice (once using Squall the other Tidus) in about 10 minutes on easy. Got my ass handed to me by Cloud of Darkness using Tidus once though.
I really like the openness of the game, I like aerial combat so this is quite nice for me.
PLAYSTATION3 X FINAL FANTASY XIII [playstation live hall]
This wasn't a world preview to the game play like I was expecting but it was, I guess, worth waiting for.
about 60 people stood in this small ass square enclosure with a chain to say 'we're waiting'. It was like an Army assembly. My legs were killing me after waiting an hour and a half.
Had a couple hours to burn so I walked around a bit more.
Came back in time for 4:00PM and soon after the show started.
We heard 2 songs, one which seems to be the theme (wasn't confirmed if I recall correctly), there were 5 people playing instruments. 2 violinists, a pianist, a miniature cello and a normal cello.
The music was superb and really hit the spot.
After the first song Masashi Hamazu (FF13 composer) came out and gave a bit of a talk about how things are going, his ideas for the music and some uninspiring advice for people wanting to get into video game music :lol
Hamazu's talk:
He said the production is good (he was talking about the music) he said when he comes with music he doesn't think straight up "I want to do THIS and THAT" but more or less comes up with something first and then will alter it until it's perfect for what it should be.
They also don't name their songs systematically like "this will be theme 10" it's more like, they make the songs, listen, and decide what fits what, if something is left, they'll use samples and maybe take out something they like and make a new song.[/i]
Second song sounded like something you would hear in a scene with some emotional torment in characters, a bit troubling I guess. It was very nice.
After that a new trailer came up, well, it was basically the one in the Closed Mega Theater however there were a couple new parts. Voice acting was not present in this version. I underlined the parts that were new in my FFXIII trailer report.
Well, if that didn't float your boat I at least hope this helps. I'm buggered.
